Not Demon Slayer or One Piece, but Mobile Suit Gundam and Frieren ruled anime Twitter in 2023

Tuesday, December 26, 2023, saw the official X (formerly Twitter) account for the site’s 2023 trend data reveal the anime most discussed on the site in 2023, including Frieren and Mobile Suit Gundam. Other entries on the list analyzing anime Twitter discussions of series in the medium include Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan, and Oshi no Ko.

The @TrendAward (X Trend Award) account seemingly collects metadata from Japanese-language posts on the site and then uses that data to analyze what the most discussed series were. Likewise, it has identified Frieren, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, and other somewhat shocking entries as the five most discussed anime series on the website.

While the entries themselves, such as Frieren, aren’t necessarily shocking, it’s more so the absence of series such as Demon Slayer or One Piece, which some are confused by. However, given that the X Trend Award data only surveys Japanese-language posts, this somewhat explains the absence of these globally famous series in the final rankings.

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Japanese anime Twitter’s five most discussed series include Frieren in third and Mobile Suit Gundam in first

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In total, the final rankings for the X Trend Awards survey of Japanese-language anime on Twitter come with some shocking inclusions and placements. Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury takes first place, with Jujutsu Kaisen in second and Frieren in third. Attack on Titan and Oshi no Ko bring up the rear in fourth and fifth, respectively.

While some fans are shocked at the absence of Demon Slayer, One Piece, My Hero Academia, and more, there’s actually a fairly simple explanation for why this is. As mentioned above, the X Trend Award account only samples Japanese-language tweets. While the three series above are certainly popular in Japan, they’re more popular in a manga sense than they are in a television anime sense, generally speaking.

This is especially true for My Hero Academia, which did not have a significant anime presence during the 2023 calendar year. Demon Slayer also suffered a similar fate, premiering early in the year for a relatively short period of time. One Piece, meanwhile, is simply much more popular as a manga series than an anime series, domestically speaking, due to the anime’s poor pacing and the series’ immense popularity.

In any case, the five series that did make the list are all deserving of inclusion. Frieren and Oshi no Ko both dominated their respective broadcast seasons as dark horses, while Witch From Mercury was a beloved two-cour series concluding in 2023. Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 and Attack on Titan’s final broadcast(s) were also both highly anticipated, further justifying their inclusion on this social media data-driven list.

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Be sure to keep up with all anime, manga, film, and live-action news as 2023 progresses.